From now until June 27th, you can pre-order Lost Planet: Extreme Condition PC on Steam and get 10% off the $39.95 purchase price. Please note that this offer is only good if you pre-order a digital copy through Steam, and not through our Capcom online store, which is the place to go if you wish to order a boxed copy instead.

The Lost Planet Map Pack 3 is now available for download from Xbox Live Marketplace. Map Pack 3 includes three brand new multiplayer environments, the lush jungles of Ruins, the dark caves of Ice Drop, and the unique 8-bit look of Lost Technology, all for only 400 Microsoft Points.

Over on Brian’s Lost Planet blog, there is news of the imminent release of Lost Planet: Extreme Condition Map Pack 3. This map pack includes 3 brand new maps: Ice Drop, Ruins, and my favorite, Lost Technology (An awesome 8-bit looking map).

Ice Drop

Ruins

Lost Technology

As pretty as these screenshots are, they just don’t do justice to how beautiful these new maps really are, so hop on over to the Lost Planet blog for fly-through videos of the maps as well.

CNET Australia recently conducted an interview with Jun Takeuchi, the producer of Lost Planet: Extreme Condition for the PC. They discussed, among other things, the prefered control schemes, sales expectations and issues with porting to DirectX 10.

CNET.com.au: Did you face any problems moving Lost Planet to DirectX 10?

Jun Takeuchi: Yes, there were plenty of obstacles we had to overcome when moving Lost Planet to DirectX 10. As far as I know, no other DirectX 10-compatible titles existed. One of the first problems was getting our hands on DX10-compatible motherboards, which were still a long way from being widely available and most of the drivers were not up to date. These things did cause some headaches when we were first getting started.

You can read the rest of the interview here.

First Japanese Video Game Company Signs on to Offer Multiple PC Games Through Valve’s Leading Digital Distribution Platform

SAN MATEO, Calif – June 12, 2007 – Capcom®, a leading worldwide developer and publisher of video games, and Valve® today announced an agreement that brings a collection of Capcom’s current and future PC games to Valve’s Steam digital distribution service. Under the arrangement, PC versions of Lost Planet™: Extreme Condition, Onimusha® 3, Devil May Cry® 3: Special Edition, Super Puzzle Fighter™ II Turbo HD Remix, and future PC titles will be made available via the leading online distribution platform. Capcom is the first major Japanese software publisher to sign on with Steam.

=> Read more!

Just noticed over on the Lost Planet Blog that the Battlegrounds map is now up and available for download from Xbox Live Marketplace, and best of all, it’s free. Download one of the best Lost Planet multiplayer maps and join in on the mayhem!

You can now hop on Xbox Live and download some sweet new content for both Dead Rising and Lost Planet.

First, Dead Rising now has three free new costumes for Frank available: The “Pure White Suit”, “Stripe” and “Accountant”. In addition, 2 new themes and picture packs are also available.

For Lost Planet, you will also find 2 new themes and picture packs, in addition to the upcoming free release of the Battlegrounds multiplayer map.

Both the Dead Rising and Lost Planet themes are available for 150 MS points each, while each picture pack will be 50 points.

Previously, the popular Lost Planet multiplayer map, Battlegrounds, was available only to owners of the Collector’s Edition. However, come June 7th, we’re opening up the map for all players to download, free (And who doesn’t like free?).

Click on the image below for the obligatory screenshots.

As many of you many have found out by now, Lost Planet PC comes with a handy-dandy built-in performance test demo. With LP PC being the first DX10 title on Vista and the recent flood of DX10 video cards, it’s especially useful as a benchmarking demo for performance comparasions. Check out the videos below to see it in action.

Low Res QuickTime Movie
High Res QuickTime Movie

Note: The movie was taken with Fraps, and as often happens, the framerate is unfortunately much lower during movie capture. As can be seen in the screenshot at the end of the video, when video capture was turned off, the FPS understandably jumped back up.

Got a burning question about the nuts and bolts behind Lost Planet? We’re taking submissions for questions for Saito-san, the technical guru who brought you Lost Planet on both the XBOX 360 as well as the PC editions.

Post your questions in the Lost Planet Forums and we’ll pass on the best of them. (Posting a question does not guarantee an answer – this is a real working team, so do your best to keep the questions succinct!).